Just Science 2008

An e-mail this morning reminded me that I'd signed up for this year's version of the Just Science blogging binge.

So, as today's contribution, here's a couple of things of which I have seen no media coverage but which I think are worth a look.

A paper in Ecological Economics by Blake Alcott, available here, takes issue with the idea that frugality can save the world...

One alleged weapon against unsustainable environmental impact is for the wealthy to consume less. [But] the lower initial demand lowers prices, which in turn stimulates new demand by others. The strategy moreover addresses only the rich, raising questions of its theoretical maximum efficacy. Its proponents usually conflate frugality with the North–South dichotomy and intragenerational with intergenerational equity. Moreover, there are difficulties with the supporting arguments that frugality is good for one’s own sake as well as for the environment, and that the rich should ‘lead the way’ to living more lightly. Personal behaviour change is furthermore not a substitute for international political efforts.

I agree with the last bit. But I suspect that, even if it doesn't directly lead to less consumption, consuming less would be good for people (me included) in other ways - mental health, changed priorities, philosophical shifts etc. - that would probably ultimately be good for the environment.

The other is slightly similar, intellectually - a paper in Ecology Letters looking at how ecosystems respond to global (climate) change. The counterintuitive point is that species in more diverse places will be less able to adapt to change (in an evolutionary sense) because there will already be someone there better adapted to the new conditions, and so they'll get out-competed before they can change.

Just Science day 1: cave bugs and shoot-em-ups

Not much time today (or tomorrow), so just a quick one drawing attention the juiciest morsels that popped into my inbox this morning.

First, and most closely related to this blog’s core themes, we have an interesting paper in Micobial Ecology by Raina Maier and her colleagues looking at the impact of tourists on the bacteria living in Kartchner Caverns, AZ.

These caves were opened to tourists in 1999. With admirable foresight (it’s depressing how rare this kind of thing is), researchers surveyed the caves’ microbial biota before opening, and now they reveal what’s changed as a consequence of having 200,000 people pass through the caves each year.

Raina's team found that the most heavily used areas had higher diversity, and different community composition — more Proteobacteria, fewer Firmicutes. This is probably a mixture of people bringing in bugs, and an increase in organic matter in the caves, say the researchers.

What we don’t know is what these changes mean for, say, nutrient cycling, food webs and so on in the caves, and whether they are something that should be of conservation concern. Microbial conservation is something I’d like to know more about, so if anyone has any pointers, please point them.

Three other things caught my eye:
1. Technological Forecasting and Social Change has a special issue of interesting-looking articles on terrorism and technology.

2. The Journal of Experimental Psychology reports that ‘action gaming enhances visuospatial attention throughout the visual field’ – i.e. playing Halo and its ilk makes you sharper-eyed. Whether this does you any good, and whether you get worse at anything else (insert your own joke about leaving the house, talking to girls etc.), is another matter.

3. And Psychopharmacology (always a favourite) finds that people who drink more coffee get more of a kick out of it. Which, given habituation and everything, seems to be the wrong way around. But I can’t tell from this abstract whether this is a consequence or cause of drinking lots and lots of lovely coffee.

There. That wasn't too bad. Back tomorrow.